Monday, January 18, 2016

The Invincible Overlord is Dead!, Long live the Invincible Overlord!

A couple of months ago my friend +Dwayne Gillingham designed a game revolving around the idea of a civil war in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. You play one of five factions, Nobles, Followers of the god Set, Follower of the goddess Mitra, the Merchant, or the Mage's Guild. As the faction leader you attempt to use your influence to control building, recruit armies and NPCs. From that you can either engage in combat, or use intrigue or magic. The game ends when one faction achieves a combined influence of 25.

Once of the long standing plotlines of my Majestic Wilderlands is a civil war between Draco-lindus, a warrior who follows Mitra, and Divolic a Myrmidon (anti-paladin) of Set. They are played by two of my oldest friends, Draco-lindus by +Tim Shorts and Divolic by +Dwayne Gillingham.

The whole thing been going on for nearly 20 years starting in the mid-90s with the actual civil war erupting in the mid 2000s. It has formed the backdrop of several Majestic Wilderlands campaigns including the two most recent campaigns. The three of us were talking and decided it was time to resolve it and that the perfect game was Dwayne City-State civil war game.

And on Saturday January 16th we finally played it out and what a game it was. Tim of course played the Mitra faction, and Dwayne played the Set faction. I played the Noble faction with the idea that they were trying to get out from under the thumb of the two and to reestablish their authority.

Turn 1
Tim went first and attempted to recruit Elder Carmine and was rebuffed. Dwayne was able to have the Setites take control of the Blue Dolphin Inn on By-water road. The Nobles lead by me were able to seize control of the Market Square which gave them a healthy boost in income.

Turn 2
The Mitrans (Tim) were finally able to convince Elder Carmine to commit. The Setites (Dwayne) were able to convince Sergeant Jakamar and the 2nd Infantry Company to join their cause. The Nobles (Rob) were able to convince the renowned knigh Sir Galius to lead their forces

Turn 3
The Mitrans scored a major victory by recruiting a powerful force of viking raiders known as the Blood Raiders, The Setities recruited Garosh Prim a noted assassin and Sergeant Jakamar was appointed Chancellor of the City-State. The Nobles recruited Dura Prem an influential noble to their cause. At the end of turn 3 the Mitran had 5 influence, The Setites 7 influence, and the Noble 10 influences.

Turn 4
The Mitran attempted to recruit an order of paladins known as the Lions of Mitra, but they declined to get involved in any politics. The Setities recruited a merchant, Zastor Species. While the Nobles managed to gain control of the income of the Red Pearl Inn in the wharf districts as well as the city's Crossbowmen. With the Noble having the upper hand the Setities attempted to assassinate Sir Galius. The attempt failed but the knight was left greviously wounded.

At the end of the turn the Mitrans had 5 influence, the Setites 8, and the Nobles 11.

Turn 5
The Mitras failed to recruit anybody to their cause, While the Setites managed to recruit Hiss Basilor another assassin. With two assassins the Setites managed to finish the war of knives they started in Turn 4 and killed Sir Galius. In relations the Nobles sent the Crossbowmen after Hiss Basilor and managed to injure him in a chase throughout alleys of the City-State. However war of knives caused a massive change in who could be recruited and as result the Myrmidons (anti-paladins) of Set came into play. The Nobles poured in every ounce of influence they had but failed to bribe them into their cause.

At the end of Turn 5, the Mitrans remained at 5, the Setites remained at 8, and the Nobles tumbled down to 9.

Turn 6
The Mitra remained quiet and managed to recruit Elina another elder of the church. Offended by the noble's bribe, the Myrmidons readily agreed to join the Setities. Nobles recovered to take control of the Gate of the Gods a major source of income. However the War of Knives resumed with Dukas Prem of the Nobles attacked by assassins.

Afterwards the Mitrans had 6 influence, the Setities 9, and the Nobles jumped to 12 nearly halfway to victory!

Turn 7
Nobody listens to the overtures of the Mitra. While the Setites recruited the Mambas Street Gang and took control of one of the city's Patrol towers. The Noble were able to take control of the Alchemy Shop and it's production of Healing Potions. But that was too late for Dukas Prem who suffered further wounds by assassins and finally died by the hands of the Myrmidon in the streets of the City-State.

The Mitras remained at 6 influence, the Setites jumped to 11 influence and Nobles moved to 13 influence.

Turn 8
The Mitra got a major boost in income when they were able to take control of the Arena. Likewise the Setites were able to gain control over the Hall of Merchants the major trading forum of the City-State. The Nobles were able to recruit the Thunder Gang. And the Crossbowmen of the Nobles ran down Hiss Basilor and riddled him with bolts.

The Mitrans now have 9 influence, the Setities 13, and the Nobles 14.

Turn 9
The famous paladin Endless Star joined the Mitran in their fight and along with taking control of the Wharf. While still behind the Nobles, the Setites had a banner turn in taking control of the Apothecary, another source of healing potion, and the Bristling Tavern. Along with that Silar, a noted lizard man warrior broke with the Mitrans and joined the Setites, and Sergeant Basilon and the 4th infantry company. The Noble seized control of Orchold the headquarters of the city guard.

At the end of the turn the Mitrans had 12 influence, the Setities jumped up to 16, and the Noble are at 17.

Turn 10
In a stunning move, Langwellan the Blue declares his support of Mitrans along with them taking control of a Weaponsmith shop. The Seties recruited Delphia a priestess of Set solidifying Divolic's control over the church. Divolic also starts to consider to openly enter the war (his card appears as one of the NPCs that could be recruited). The 3rd Infantry Company and Vadius Crocker, a noble, are recruited by the Nobles. However in a stunning display of power, a few days after his annoucement Langwellan was assassinated by the Setites.

At the end of the turn the Mitra had 15 influence, the Setites 18, and the Noble 18.

Turn 11
The Mitran fail to recruit anybody to their cause. While the Setities recruited Zishun, Amharic the Scrouge, and in a stunning development persuaded the Brotherhood of the Lion to join their cause. The Brotherhood are the thieves guild of the City-State and are descendants of Mitran resistance fighters opposed to the Invincible Overlord. The Brotherhood rename themselves the Brotherhood of the Serpent. The Nobles continued to build their army with the Mounted Guards and despite the Mitrans control of the Arena also managed to recruit the Gladiators. However the Setites sent the 4th infantry shop and other forces to to burn down the Alchemist shop. The attempt succeeded and the shop was destroyed depriving the nobles of a reliable source of healing potions.The Nobles made the leader of the Thunder Gang a Justicar.

Afterwards the Mitrans dropped to 15 influence, the Setities gained and had 19, and the Noble also rose to 19.

Turn 12
After the shocking death of Langwellan, the Mitra recruited Bodyguards to safeguard Endless Star and the rest of the members of the faction. Sergeant Jakamar of the Setites gains influence by being appointed Justicar. Rumors swirl that he second in power only to Divolic himself. The Mitrans enters the war in a big way when the Blood Raiders, gladiators from the Arena were lead by Endless Star and ran down Garosh Prim, the Setites master assassin, and executed him. The Setites also suffered another blow when the Gladiators, Mounted Guards, and the Crossbowmen attacked the Apothecary.

However it was four naught as the Setites recruited Jersha another priestess of Set and one of the last not to commit to Divolic's cause. With the three priestesses, Divolic was able to seize control of the Hellbridge Temple.

The turn ended with with the Mitran at 15 influence, the Setities 25, and the Nobles still at 19. Divolic (Dwayne) was victorious.

+Joshua Macy, yeah it was a pretty bad result for the Mitrans in City-State. I will be writing about the consequences in the next post. But hey at least your character got into the conflict and helped with gathering resource cards. One of the rules is that you can use the magic attribute of your characters as an action to gain resource cards which are weapons, titles, special events, etc.

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To me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It is about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

What are RPGs?

A game where the players play individual characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

Rules are an aide to help the referee adjudicate actions and to help the players interact with the setting.

Dice are used to inject uncertainty which make a tabletop RPG campaign more interesting than "Let's Pretend".

The only thing a player needs to do to roleplay a character is to act if he or she was really there in the setting in that situation.